My First Short Film

So, came back from a week of hell being the Assistant Director on a friends show. He had more than 120 shots to get off on a location we had for three days for 6 hours. No magician could have pulled a rabbit out of a hat for that one, but we tried. Good news followed though, the last round of final projects turned up my name as one of the directors and I finally got a chance to direct one of the scripts I had been working on for ages. Something told me it wasn't going to be easy.

The guy who was supposed to be my Producer on the show had attached himself to 6 projects. One of which got picked in an earlier round. My conversation with him left me looking for a replacement as the rules state that you can't hold one position twice in a row. Even so, the dude decided to show up 45 minutes late to the crew up process leaving me to pick a new Producer. The only one that came to mind was my good friend Michael Haskins, eeeeeeeee EVER SICK EH! because he wanted to be on the camera team. He put aside his wishes and said he would help me out by being my Producer. Now the trouble started. The guy I picked as my Camera Operator well, he's sort of a perfectionist. Part of the reason why I picked him, he's probably one of the top camera operators in the class. But sometimes his attitude pisses everyone off. Thus no one wanted to be on my team. At the end of the crewing process, I got left with the people that no one wanted and to top it all, I had no Sound Mixer and no 1st A.C. So no sound and no one to pull focus. One of my teachers pulled me aside and told me straight up that I had basically screwed myself.

This pissed me off!!! Like when I say pissed me off I mean pissed me off. I was determined to prove everyone and everything around me wrong. Thus started the two weeks of pre-production. My producer fell ill and couldn't figure out why his body was giving him trouble. He explained to me that he felt immense pain throughout his lower body and his medication for luekemia weren't working as effectively as before. He made an appointment with his doctor.

I took over casting and shared producing stuff with him and my DOP. Hence came time to hunt for locations. We need a Church, a Dark Alleyway, A Police Station, A House, A Hospital, A rooftop and a Confessional. Luckily Mikey locked the Church, Laurent got permission for the Dark Alleyway and the sidewalk in front of the church. Now began the hunt for an Office, a house and a Hospital. A week before production my DOP Nandini locked a friends house which left us looking for an office space and a hospital room. Laurent had been in touch with one building which was perfect for an office space but the guy there kept giving us the round around and thus Laurent kept giving me the run around. I tried to explain to him that he needed to ride his ass till he gave us the location but he didn't seem to understand.

Two days before the filming we still had no Office space nor did we have a hospital room. Then something turned up. One of our Cinematography instructors Larry Lyn (C.S.C) was filming at an old run down hospital wing that had been shut down for years and we decided to ask for a favour. Turns out good!!! BUT we have no transportation. No one in our group has a car and renting one was bloody expensive. It took my Asst. Director, Art Director and DP 2 hours to get there plus a 20 minute walk along the highway to get to the location where we would have been filming. A day before we decide that it would be more feasible to build a set for the hospital. Something I had feared we were going to do and I hate filming on set. I preferred a location. But thats how the ball bounced and we had to keep dribbling. Laurent locked an office space by offering some dude money to let us use his office space that had been empty for ages.

In between all this, at the start of the week, Mikey finally got to see his doctor and it was bad news. His Luekemia had taken a turn for the worse and he was going through some painful procedures like spinal taps and bone marrow extractions. He wasn't doing too well and my stress level rose like a river during a storm. Stephen is made to take over as Producer. Casting had gone well and I had my lead male and female roles. I offered one of the supporting roles to an actor who bailed on me but asked if I could rearrange my schedule to fit him in because he had always wanted to play a doctor. I told him to fuck off. Another actor who had the other supporting role bailed on us because he was "stuck on set". He had auditioned for the lead role but he was too old and didn't look the part anyhow. So I had offered him the other part and I'm guessing he wasn't happy. A day before the shoot I land two amazing actors to play the part of the Chief of Police and the Doctor. Needless to say the journey was stressful. Can't have a film without actors.

Come friday and we're in the studio nailing, drilling and painting flats to make it look like a hospital room. I spoke to Mikey this morning and the river fell back to it's original state. He was on new medication and sounded cheerful and was in high spirits. His body pain was gone but he had to be in the hospital for a month undergoing chemotherapy and is due for a bone marrow transplant after that. But just to hear his voice put me in high spirits. He was going to be okay.

So we start building the hospital at 2pm on the friday and keep working non-stop till 2am Saturday. It's done. The walls are standings, the paint is drying and set decorations look awesome. We break to go home.

Saturday we start filming at 8am and the day goes well. Two scenes down and 12 to go.

Sunday we film the confessional and the scene on the rooftop. 2 more down and 10 to go. The rooftop was a nightmare. I had my schematics, storyboards and had even blocked the actors on the rooftop when my directing instructor came along and changed everything on me. Thus the cinematography department was not happy in the least. They had spent the last 30 minutes setting up lights. Needless to say the Cinematography instructor had volunteered to be on set with us to supervise the rootop scene. Something to do with the school's insurance policy blah blah blah blah liability blah blah blah. He's giving my DOP a hard time plus the script calls for the actor walking towards to the edge of the roof and then turning back. He tells me I can't have that. NOW HE TELLS ME!!!!!!!!!!!! AFTER THREE WEEKS OF PRE-PRODUCTION MEETINGS!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!! Now I have one instructor coming up to me saying I can't have him go over and the other saying he HAS to go over or the script is ruined. Ummmm I know man, it's my script, I freakin wrote it! Oh and stop directing my actors you asswipe, that's my job!!! My directing instructor comes through and tells the actor to jump over the safety railing and onto the edge. I'm sort of happy. The cinematography instructor isn't. But I didn't care. That wasn't my department. I have a little showdown with the cinematography instructor and I stand up for my team. He's not happy with the way I spoke to him but he was asking for it. Being grumpy on set and 'scolding' me in front of my actors and then talking about the level of respect he got on set from my team because we showed up late. My actors stood by me and told me that it was impressive the way I had stood up for myself and my team and at the end of the day, thats all that mattered to me. Now, I still had a hold on my actors and could direct them. If they had lost respect for me, my film would have been crap! 2am and the scene is done and shot and I'm more than happy to go home.

Monday we shoot the office scene. We meet up at the designated place at the call time provided to us. Turns out Laurent's contact for the office space has not showed up. He is trying to call him but his cell phone is switched off. Our camera is locked up in the equipment room and we are told that the person who can let us have it has left for the day. Long story short, he was still in the E.R. but had closed the doors to it. We have our camera. We still don't have our contact for the building. Someone else shows up an hour and a half later, drunk off his ass and lets us in.
1am we are done with this scene as well.

Tuesday we shoot the scene in the Church, outside the church and the dark alleyway. All goes well at the church and around it. Come night time, our cinematography instructor has promised my DP a 6000 watt HMI light to illuminate the street with. Last minute he tells her she doesn't need it. All we're left with is a 2000 watt Junoir and a few Baby's (1000 watt) and Peppers (300 watt). DAYUM!!!!!!! She lit it and she lit it well. Some more bad news. He also tells her that he's very disappointed with what we had shot in the studio on set and he didn't like the lighting. My DP is a little annoyed and upset. I give her a pep talk and things get on their way. The scene is done and over with. *deeeeeeeeeeep breath*

Wednesday, the last day of the shoot. GOOD NEWS! my DP calls me up in the morning and said that our Producing instructor had been on another set where her roommate was the Art Director on and told them to look at our dailies because they were the best out of the bunch. This put us in high spirits and she and myself rushed to school to take a look at them. THEY LOOKED FABULOUS!!!!!! The scene our cinematography instructor was talking about was a less than a minute scene and nothing we couldn't fix in post. We got together in school and headed out to last location. Scene shot and done with. The film was in the can.

IT'S A WRAP!!!

At the end, we were all happy and the film turned out well. Editing begins this saturday. I couldn't have done it without

Michael Haskins
Ravinandini Singh
Laurent Piche'
SeRin Auh
Stephen Pickering
Toshie Usui
Pandu Birantoro
Nicholas Loizou

My misfit team pulled off the best looking film in the bunch yet. Ofcourse a special thanks to my actors,

Rod Williams
Barbara Krebesova
Patrick Gallagher
Brent Stewart
Josh Blacker
Shaffin Karim